BALTIMORE — For a year, students at Maryland's SEED School have been studying the similarities between black and Jewish cultures and their histories.
The project is called “Bridge to Freedom: Cross-Cultural Conversations through Art.”
This week students will share what they have learned through music, poetry and an exhibition at the Gordon Center for the Arts. It is the first of its kind and is about bridge building.
The concert is at 6pm on Thursday and will feature the band The Melting Pot as well as spoken word performances and a gallery show. Tickets are $20.
SEED art students carefully annotated the images they created to express what they learned about the shared history of oppression of both the African American and Jewish communities.
The panels came after hours of teaching, discussion and debate.
“Where are the places where we connect? Where are the places where we still move beyond anti-Semitism and racism?” said Ebony Miles, SEED art teacher.
Last year, the program included a visit to both the Museum of African American Culture and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC
For Diana Jennings, a SEED student, it was a revelation.
“If you really think about it, we, as African-American people, also went through a Holocaust and are still going through a Holocaust, so far away from our motherland.
“The more we can teach our students, not only about the history of African American culture, but also about the Jewish community, and that it brings people together, and that's what this is all about,” said Tony Campbell, a SEED school board member.
